A petition to ban combustible cladding after it was found to have accelerated the Grenfell Tower fire has been started by architect and TV presenter George Clarke.

Clarke, who’s appeared on Channel 4’s The Home Show, Restoration Man and George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces, launched the petition today (June 7) and hopes to have the 100,000 signatures necessary to spark a parliamentary debate by the date of the Grenfell anniversary.

Appearing on the Jamie East show, Clarke, who lives near the tower, recalled the night of the disaster.

“It was horrific, that’s the only word you can use,” he says.

“I heard the beeping of a smoke alarm. I thought it was my house at first. I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs and thought, ‘it’s not mine’.

In December last year, Dame Judith Hackitt released her interim report from her Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety, which was commissioned by the government in the wake of Grenfell, and Clarke says he was disappointed by her findings.

“I was really upset by it. We’d been campaigning for the banning of combustible materials and she says that wasn’t the root cause of the problem,” he says.

“Her point was that there was systematic problems. But the cladding on that building, and the fact the fire spread so quickly, caused the death of those people.

“The fundamental problem is fire spread.

“Even though she thinks it doesn’t get to the root cause of the problem, banning combustible materials would have helped.”

Clarke’s petition, which at the time of writing had almost 6,000 signatures, calls for the government to ban the use of combustible materials on tower blocks, high-rise buildings (this generally includes all buildings over 7-10 storeys) and buildings such as hospitals, schools and shopping malls where there could be a high risk to public safety.

“The cladding system was peeling off like a banana and flapping around in the sky.

“If we can get 100,000 signatures by the anniversary, I can walk up to Downing Street and say the public have demanded change.

“There are 297 residential towers in the UK now [the government’s direction to local housign authorities states 294 buildings in the UK with similar cladding failed some safety tests] that have the same cladding system as Grenfell and it hasn’t been removed yet .

“This petition will save lives. On every level it’s outrageous, but nobody should have lost their life that night."